If only being censured by the Arapahoe County Republican Party meant I would be spared the daily barrage of unsolicited GOP fundraising text messages.
On Monday, the county party’s central committee censured the four Republican plaintiffs in Anderson et al v. Griswold et al, of which I am one. The case, heard this week in the Colorado Supreme Court, examines whether former President Donald Trump is eligible to run for president under the U.S. Constitution.
The censure serves as an object lesson to the importance of civic education. I’ll put my MA in political science to work and examine the document’s “whereas” statements starting with the expectation that party members support the GOP platform and principles.
Presumably, they meant the official 59-page 2016 platform adopted by the Republican National Committee. If so, the lawsuit to force Colorado’s Secretary of State Jenna Griswold to uphold the Constitution and keep Trump off the ballot should check that box for me, not get me in hot water with the party.
The Republican treatise on conservative and free market principles and policies is quite lengthy but it’s worth noting that five sentences into the document, it reads: “We believe in the Constitution as our founding document. We believe the Constitution was written not as a flexible document, but as our enduring covenant.” Was this the principle to which they referred?
The next whereas accuses litigants of attempting to eliminate a candidate from the ballot. No individual or group can remove candidates from a ballot. Rather, candidates are qualified or disqualified to run by their own actions. When I was a candidate I had to meet certain criteria to be on the ballot. If I had not met those criteria, my name would not have appeared there.
Likewise, there are multiple qualifications to hold the office of the presidency under the Constitution. The first three qualifications, stated in Article II, regard age (at least 35 years old), citizenship (natural born not naturalized), and time in the country (at least 14 years). The second two are prohibitions stated in the 14th and 22nd Amendments. An officeholder who took an oath to the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or one who has already held that office for two terms (or a partial term of at least two years and a second term) is not eligible to run again.
If Americans wish to amend or remove these requirements for the office, they may do so by securing an amendment passed by a two-thirds majority vote in the House and Senate and ratified by state legislatures or through a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures.
We cannot, however, ignore constitutional provisions, or pretend they no longer apply as though our foundational pact was a living constitution subject to ad hoc interpretation.
Since the early Republic, disagreements on how to apply constitutional provisions have been litigated in the courts. This is not the first time presidential eligibility requirements have been thus scrutinized. In 2016, a court ruled that Senator Ted Cruz, born in Canada to an American mother and Cuban-born father, was a natural-born citizen and thus eligible for higher office.
Usually calls to ignore constitutional limits come from the left. Republicans are quick to remind Democrats that the United States is a republic not a pure democracy and there are many constraints in the Constitution on majoritarian rule for a reason.
Legislative, executive and judicial offices have different qualifications, length of terms, means of election (direct vote, electoral college, or appointment), and different enumerated duties and prerogatives. Without these restraints on power, a bare majority or powerful faction could disenfranchise the rest of us.
America’s democracy — its government “of the people, by the people, for the people” to borrow Abe Lincoln’s words — is only possible because it is a constitutional republic. To remain so, the provisions of the Constitution must be upheld or else lawfully amended.
Finally, the censure states that plaintiffs’ actions “further encouraged splintering the party instead of fostering unity.” Everyone on this lawsuit has dedicated decades to the Republican cause. The first plaintiff, for whom the case is named, Senator Norma Anderson, was the first female majority leader in the Colorado Senate. The Colorado GOP owes her a debt of gratitude for much of what the party accomplished from the late eighties to the early 2000s when it was ascendant.
Back then we unified around such things as school choice, tax reform, building a strong economy, instituting law and order, and upholding the rule of law. On the last point, Anderson continues to lead the way. It is not we who have deviated from that principle.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer
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